Reframing Youth Political Participation
•Als PPTX, PDF herunterladen•
1 gefällt mir•407 views
This presentation summarizes my research for my MA thesis. In sum, the presentation offers an alternative way of understanding and explaining youth political participation - one that is rooted in historical context and considers the socio-material conditions that characterize young adulthood today. Iterations of this presentation have been shared at the Annual Conference for the Society for the Psychology Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) held Portland Oregon in 2013 and at the Annual Conference of the Journal for Youth Studies held in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2015.
Empfohlen
Weitere ähnliche Inhalte
Ähnlich wie Reframing Youth Political Participation
Ähnlich wie Reframing Youth Political Participation (17)
Kürzlich hochgeladen
Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)
Reframing Youth Political Participation
- 1. Inverting the Gaze & Reframing Youth Political Participation Disclosure Statement: This presentation has been adapted so as to communicate without audio. A presentation by Kristen Hackett For the Annual American Psychological Association Conference Toronto, ON August 6, 2015
- 2. FORMAL • Holds formal system at its core and assess formal and traditional behaviors • Proposes how we can get young people more involved in system • civic education and service learning • Politicians need to listen! INFORMAL (youthful expressions) • Critical and radical interpretations of political participation that investigate youth-based everyday expressions of political agency and/or critical youth movements Literature on Youth Political Participation
- 3. FORMAL • Holds formal system at its core and assess formal and traditional behaviors • Proposes how we can get young people more involved in system • civic education and service learning • Politicians need to listen! INFORMAL (youthful expressions) • Critical and radical interpretation of political participation that investigate youth-based everyday expressions of political agency and/or critical youth movements Critical, radical approach that maintains focus on formal politics and acknowledges youth experience as socio-material reality/condition Where I situate my work
- 4. • • • • • Cri$cal,)radical)) approach)that) maintains)focus) on)formal)poli$cs) and)acknowledge) youth)experience) as)socio:material) reality/condi$on) • How does the political landscape appear to young adults? • What factors and motivations are most prominent in their decision making around political participation? • How do these factors and motivations coalesce to inform political behavior? • What can young people’s negotiations around political participation tell us about the construction of the political system and broader political economic structure? RESEARCH OBJECTIVES Critical Bifocality (Weiss and Fine, 2012)
- 5. Protocol • Introduction to Psychology course students at an urban, public university in New York City – Students received extra credit in exchange for their participation (amidst other alternative options). • Mixed method surveys virtually distributed using Survey Monkey to volunteer participants • Survey inquired about: – Demographics (Age, sex, race, education, employment, political) – Thoughts on and participation in 2012 Presidential Election – How they “express their civic and political opinions and beliefs” about political and civic issues and why – What they think the role of someone their age is – Perceptions of Personal Future and US Future • Grounded qualitative analysis
- 6. SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS N=33 undergraduates • 96.9% Full-Time • 3.1% Part-Time 69.7% New Yorkers by Birth 87.1% New Yorkers by Tenure (>1/2 of life) Average Age, 21 (Range, 18-30) (16.5% = 25+ y.o.) 41.1% considered “low-income students”* • 42% Work Part-time • 27% looking for work *Based on Parent Education RACE/ETHNICITY % 1 American Indian/Alaskan Native 3.0% 2 Asian 36.4% 3 African American/Black 15.2% 4 Hispanic 24.2% 5 Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander - 6 White 18.2% 7 Two or More Races 3% International n/a GENDER % Women 81.8% Men 18.2%
- 7. FINDINGS
- 8. CivicDuty Being Politically Informed (76%) Voicing opinions & Being Heard (55%) Debate, discussion, and dialogue (60%) “young adults should engage by watching the news and reading the paper.” “What makes [SNS and class discussions] important is that both include audience involvement.” “I think that the most important ways for young adults to engage in by communicating as a group and joining debates.” 97% (n=32) hold ‘traditional’ civic and political values
- 9. CivicDuty Being Politically Informed (76%) Voicing opinions & Being Heard (55%) Debate, discussion, and dialogue (60%) “young adults should engage by watching the news and reading the paper.” “What makes [SNS and class discussions] important is that both include audience involvement.” “I think that the most important ways for young adults to engage in by communicating as a group and joining debates.” 97% (n=32) hold ‘traditional’ civic and political values BUTTTT- Only 50% of my sample voted…
- 10. Two explanatory factors: 1. Perceptions of the political system 2. Perceptions of time
- 11. PERCEPTIONS OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM n=22 | 66.7%
- 12. • Outright Negative – “I have no faith in the promises presidents make I always thought the purpose of becoming a president was to serve the public. Now it seems its more about power, control and greed”. • Reluctant and contemplative – “Although, many people fought for our right to vote I couldn't bring myself to vote during the election because I feel like our politicians don’t listen to us anyways. Also many politicians tend to promise so many things when running for election but their promises never seem to pull through, so it defeats the purpose of picking the best one candidate if they don’t fulfill their promises.” • Structural/Institutional barriers – I think that the role of someone my age would be interested in politics because they care about what is going to be implemented. But the people in my age group would probably realize that their vote wouldn’t count in New York as a majority state.” DISENCHANTMENT BLUE = Expectation | RED = Revelation
- 13. DEUNIONIZATION SHIFTING TAX BURDEN MACRO CONTEXT: Neoliberalism and the shifting of wealth upwards
- 14. Rise in Economic Inequality Source: Saez and Piketty, "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-1998" in Quarterly Journal of Economics
- 15. ...as well as Political Inequality —Taskforce on Inequality and American Democracy (2004): higher income, more likely to participate and be heard ● “Citizens with lower or moderate incomes speak with a whisper that is lost on the ears of inattentive government officials, while the advantaged roar with a clarity and consistency that policy-makers readily hear and routinely follow.” —Corporate business interests ● Citizens United vs. FEC (2010) ● Supreme Court struck down campaign donation limitations (2014) —Gilens and Page 2014 (Forthcoming Fall 2014) ● “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interested groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.. … In plain terms this means that average American do not have much or or any say in the policies being created.”
- 16. PERCEPTIONS OF TIME n=21 | 63.6%
- 17. • Age – “I think the way I engage is different because I am more centrally focused at this point in my life, right now I have to make sure I get a proper education and well paying job to support myself and my future family. • Everyday Time – “I was preoccupied with college work and had no time to register for voting. … My friends and I also had class on election day, the booths were filled and there were long lines. We did not want to risk missing a class.” • Efficiency of Participation – “As a young adult I prefer using the social media because its always readily available and it’s a source that I use daily multiple time a day. [Social media] is something we are always checking and posting things on so why not use it to help you grow more politically and to help you become more aware of what’s going on.” Overall, perception of competing constraints on time
- 18. These perceptions of time, or perceptions of the constraints on one’s time become more interpretable in the context of the larger narrative – in which young people also discuss their fears about their future. 1. cost of college and student debt 2. future employment
- 19. • Student Debt – “When I think about my future I feel anxious. I know that I can have a decent future if I work hard in school and graduate with a master’s degree, however, I know that there are a lot of things about my future tha ti cannot control. For example, the cost of college can increase and make it hard for me to finish school on time or force me to take out loans that I will have trouble paying back once I graduate.” • Jobs – “I heard that most of the college students, when they graduated, they will spend more than one or two years to find jobs. And some of college students cannot find the job that is related to what they learn from college and it’s very different to their major. There is also a problem for most of the undergraduate student including me. We may confuse about out future. We don’t know what we have to do. To choose a major we like, or to choose a major that is easy to earn the money. But if we choose the major that is easy to earn the money, that will hard to graduate, we will worry that can you graduated? However, if we choose the major we like, we also will ask that can we find the job after we graduated? that makes us so confuse and stress on our way, our future, our determination.”
- 20. • Student Debt – “When I think about my future I feel anxious. I know that I can have a decent future if I work hard in school and graduate with a master’s degree, however, I know that there are a lot of things about my future tha ti cannot control. For example, the cost of college can increase and make it hard for me to finish school on time or force me to take out loans that I will have trouble paying back once I graduate.” • Jobs – “I heard that most of the college students, when they graduated, they will spend more than one or two years to find jobs. And some of college students cannot find the job that is related to what they learn from college and it’s very different to their major. There is also a problem for most of the undergraduate student including me. We may confuse about out future. We don’t know what we have to do. To choose a major we like, or to choose a major that is easy to earn the money. But if we choose the major that is easy to earn the money, that will hard to graduate, we will worry that can you graduated? However, if we choose the major we like, we also will ask that can we find the job after we graduated? that makes us so confuse and stress on our way, our future, our determination.” More than youthful anxieties about the future; rather, LEGITIMATE concerns stemming from the socio-material conditons that characterize young adulthood today
- 21. SOCIO-MATERIAL CONDITIONS CONFRONTING YOUTH TODAY Costs of higher education, student debt, limited employment options
- 22. COST OF COLLEGE 2013/14 School Year On-campus 4yr in-state public school $22,826 4yr private school $44,750 Educational Costs: National Trends • 1983-1984 s.y. to 2012-2013 s.y., inflation-adjusted cost of four-year education, +125.5% for private school, +129.1 for pubic school • Median family income, +15.6% (College Board 2013; CPS ASEC) Economic Policy Institute, Briefing Paper #377 May 1, 2014
- 23. Educational Costs of Respondent’s University
- 24. COST OF COLLEGE STUDENT DEBT 2013/14 School Year On-campus 4yr in-state public school $22,826 4yr private school $44,750 • 2010: 1 in 5 US households owed money on student debt – More than doubled since 1989 • Average $26,682; • Median $13,410 • 10% HH, owe +61,895 Educational Costs: National Trends • 1983-1984 s.y. to 2012-2013 s.y., inflation-adjusted cost of four-year education, +125.5% for private school, +129.1 for pubic school • Median family income, +15.6% (College Board 2013; CPS ASEC) Economic Policy Institute, Briefing Paper #377 May 1, 2014 Fry (2012) using Survey of Consumer Finances
- 25. (UN)(UNDER) EMPLOYMENT EMPLOYER-COVERED HEALTH INSURANCE Employment Opportunities and Secure Future: National Trends FIGUREI VIEWINTERACTIVEon epi.org Unemployment and underemployment ratesof young college graduates, 1994–2014* * Datafor 2014represent 12-month averagefromApril 2013–March 2014. Note: Underemployment data are only available beginning in 1994. Data are for college graduates age 21–24 who do not have an advanced degreeand arenot enrolled in further schooling.Shaded areasdenoterecessions. Source:Authors’ analysisof Current Population Surveymicrodata 16.8% 8.5% Underemployment rate Unemployment rate 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 0 5 10 15 20% Employed college graduatesending up in lower-level jobs Although the measure of underemployment used in Figure I—the U-6 measure of labor underutilization—includes hours-based underemployment (i.e., part-time workers who want full-time work), it doesnot include “skills/educa- tion–based” underemployment (e.g., the young college graduate working as a barista). A recent paper by researchers Unemployment rate Underemployment rate 1994 5.3% 10.2% 1995 5.8% 10.9% 1996 5.5% 9.8% 1997 3.8% 7.7% 1998 4.4% 7.6% 1999 5.0% 7.6% 2000 4.3% 7.0% 2001 5.9% 9.4% 2002 5.7% 9.2% 2003 6.4% 11.3% 2004 5.9% 10.7% 2005 5.5% 10.1% 2006 5.0% 8.9% 2007 5.5% 9.6% 2008 5.9% 10.7% 2009 9.1% 17.3% 2010 9.6% 18.2% 2011 9.3% 18.0% 2012 8.0% 16.9% 2013 8.6% 16.9% 2014 8.5% 16.8% FIGUREO VIEWINTERACTIVEon epi.org Share of employed recent high school and college graduateswith health insurance provided by their own employer, 1989–2012 Note: Coverage is defined asbeing included in an employer-provided plan where the employer paid for at least some of the cover- age.Dataarefor collegegraduatesage21–24whodonot havean advanced degreeand arenot enrolled in further schooling,and high school graduatesage17–20whoarenot enrolled in further schooling.Shaded areasdenoterecessions. Source:Authors’ analysisof Current PopulationAnnual Social and EconomicSupplement microdata 30.9% 6.6% Collegegraduates Highschool graduates 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 0 20 40 60 80% Thesenumbershavesincedeclined dramatically. In 2013, just 6.6 percent of employed new high school graduatesand lessthan athird (30.9 percent) of employed new collegegraduatesreceived health insurancethrough their job. That employer-provided health insurancecoverageismuch higher among new collegegraduatesthan new high school graduatesremindsusthat completing collegecan result in significant economic benefits. But thefact that health insur- High school graduates College graduates 1989/ 01/01 23.5% 60.7% 1990/ 01/01 21.9% 53.8% 1991/ 01/01 18.7% 56.2% 1992/ 01/01 14.3% 46.8% 1993/ 01/01 14.7% 48.4% 1994/ 01/01 17.1% 49.8% 1995/ 01/01 17.4% 51.5% 1996/ 01/01 15.0% 51.1% 1997/ 01/01 16.8% 48.0% 1998/ 01/01 16.6% 49.4% 1999/ 01/01 18.0% 49.4% 2000/ 01/01 20.1% 53.1% 2001/ 01/01 18.5% 49.2% 2002/ 01/01 14.8% 46.6% 2003/ 13.4% 41.0%
- 26. • Student Debt – “When I think about my future I feel anxious. I know that I can have a decent future if I work hard in school and graduate with a master’s degree, however, I know that there are a lot of things about my future tha ti cannot control. For example, the cost of college can increase and make it hard for me to finish school on time or force me to take out loans that I will have trouble paying back once I graduate.” • Jobs – “I heard that most of the college students, when they graduated, they will spend more than one or two years to find jobs. And some of college students cannot find the job that is related to what they learn from college and it’s very different to their major. There is also a problem for most of the undergraduate student including me. We may confuse about out future. We don’t know what we have to do. To choose a major we like, or to choose a major that is easy to earn the money. But if we choose the major that is easy to earn the money, that will hard to graduate, we will worry that can you graduated? However, if we choose the major we like, we also will ask that can we find the job after we graduated? that makes us so confuse and stress on our way, our future, our determination.” Encourage Reworking of Priorities Privileging individual efforts to secure one’s future
- 27. Concluding Points I In thinking about the significance of how these young people are resolving the insecurity and future anxiety they are confronting, I have been thinking a lot about the rise of austerity policy that has been an important outcome of the restructuring – and the extent to which these responses reveal an embodiment of the transference and acceptance of responsibility as the state retreats.
- 28. Concluding Points II Also, I think there is an interesting interplay with the values embedded in the American Dream, which has been laced into the history of the US, about working hard and personal responsibility that solidify this embodiment, which might give us insight into why we’re not seeing the same large-scale austerity protest other countries are experiencing.
- 29. Concluding Points III Lastly, while to me this argument seems extremely logical and ‘duhhh’, scholars on youth political participation and policy makers have come up short in relating these two literatures and levying them towards social change. Instead, we continue to emphasize formal political participation, civic education and service learning. In doing so we participate in the reproduction of this system, and normalize the idiocracy of supporting a system that doesn’t support us by passing these values onto young people. .
- 30. Comments, questions, suggestions, please! Contact me at hackettka@gmail.com OR Find me on the web at: Kristenhackett.org
Hinweis der Redaktion
- Hello – Presenting most recent analysis of 2nd year paper which attempts to reframe youth political participation in such a way that the gaze of critique, which is usually pointed at young people themselves, becomes redirected toward broader structures that may be informing youth decisions around political participation.
- There are two general branches of research on youth political participation. First – FORMAL -privileges participation in formal system and strives to incorporate young people into the existing system. How can we increase youth voting rates? Other traditionally political behaviors – reading the newspaper.. Locate fault with young people themselves and develop solutions, such as civic education and service learning programs, that seek to address their faults. Second branch – Informal or alternative forms of participation, and in the case of young people, emphasize ‘youthful expressions of political agency. - broadens politics beyond formal sphere to include political consumption, expression of political agency in youth cultures such as rave culture… participation via social media and online… In general, they move away from formal politics under the main critique that those are adult-centric forms and thus assessing and condemning young people’s political participation along those lines is inappropriate. need youth-centric ways of explaining youth participation
- My project falls somewhere in the middle ground here in that my aim is to take a critical radical approach by delving deeper into the relationship young people have with the formal political system rather than moving away. Moreover, I aim to acknowledge the age of my respondents as a socio-material condition or reality rather than a cultural quality or set of values.
- In this endeavor I apply Weiss and Fine’s Critical Bifocality which prompts me to assess both the micro-level and macro-level processes, and the relationship between them. So here I attempt to understand the everyday negotiations that young people engage in around political participation, and the factors and motivations that come into play, as well as the policy, political, and political economic environments that comprise the macro-level structures --- and focus on understanding how one may be informing or being informed by the other. In putting these layers in conversation, youth negotiations around politics, and political disaffection become interpretable in relation to the socio-material conditions of being a young adult today, and their negotiations, when deconstructed, become legitimate comments and/or critiques of those conditions. Root causes.. Creates opening for more appropriate solutions.
- Data for this study was virtually collected from students attending a public university in NYC- in the months just before and after the 2012 Presidential Election. The qualitative portion of the survey asked students’ to reflect on their decisions around participating in the election, their broader political views, and the role of them and others their age in politics today and were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. I also collected quantitative data on their social, educational, employment and political backgrounds.
- The sample is comprised of 33 students and is predominantly minority, female New Yorkers attending school full-time, almost half of whom are also of a lower income background. Over 60% of the sample was working part-time or actively looking for work. This sample is not overwhelmingly different from the larger student body.
- So what are these kids saying? The very first thing that is clear in data is
- …that the majority of the young people in my sample hold what we think of as traditional civic and political values. They discuss 1. being informed, 2. voicing opinions and being heard, and 3. emphasize debate, discussion and dialogue.. Despite these expressed civic values, only half of my sample voted. In my paper I theorize this further about the presence of such contradictions, but for today, I will say, this and other disconnects in the responses provided an opening or entry point into the responses. My analysis yields two separate but related factors. --
- …that the majority of the young people in my sample hold what we think of as traditional civic and political values. They discuss 1. being informed, 2. voicing opinions and being heard, and 3. emphasize debate, discussion and dialogue.. Despite these expressed civic values, only half of my sample voted. In my paper I theorize this further about the presence of such contradictions, but for today, I will say, this and other disconnects in the responses provided an opening or entry point into the responses. My analysis yields two separate but related factors. --
- The first speaks to their perceptions of the realities of the political system in the US today – in my brain I call this ‘disenchantment’ because these revelations have to do with a breaking down of their expectations and a coming to terms with the limitations of the current political system.
- Some were very upfront and outright negative as in the first quote here. – zero faith Others were more reluctant and contemplative.. – I couldn’t bring my self to vote.. And some just pointed to structural or institutional barriers they thought restricted the meaning of their vote. Electoral college or majority states or lack of desirable candidates which at least one tied to campaign financing (tried to highlight, blue is expectation, red is revelation).
- In understanding these in a macro context, I consider the takeover of neoliberal ideology, economic restructuring of the 1970’s and the rewriting of policies in favor of the wealthy and business elite and have since worked to shfit wealth upwards.
- While this has been tied to economic inequality, it is more relevant to talk about the related political inequality
- That is growing alongside economic inequality – and is underpinned by the relationship between economic status and political voice, a relationship that is even-tightening in recent years with the passing of Citizens United and other similar bills extending rights to corporate groups. Cyclical and exacerbating relationship between economic inequality and political inequality -- overshadow the remaining and pass further bills in their favor. By putting youth expressions of disaffection for the political system or their disenchantments in this context, their claims become serious critiques of a skewed system, and decisions to not vote become understood as rational reactions.
- The second factor has to do with the way perceptions of or perceived constraints on time informed their modes of participation and level of engagement with politics and the political election in 2012.
- Three separate but related themes emerge – some discussed.. time in relation to the lifespan and reported that at this time in their life, as a young adult, political participation was not necessarily a priority. time in the context of their everyday lives, expressed a preference for efficient modes of participation.
- These perceptions of time, or perceptions of the constraints on one’s time become more interpretable in the context of the larger narrative – in which young people also discuss their fears about their future. In this vein, concerns about cost of college and student debt and future employment emerged with regularity. Now these concerns regarding one’s future and the sense that ‘right now in my life my time should be dedicated to securing it’ could be written off as general anxieties young people face because of the period of uncertainty that follows the graduation of college; however, if we consider them in the context of the socio-material conditions that exist for young people today, they too become legitimated beyond youthful anxieties. (ground these in the socio-material realities of their lives – conditions that develop out of the restructuring discussed previously.
- These perceptions of time, or perceptions of the constraints on one’s time become more interpretable in the context of the larger narrative – in which young people also discuss their fears about their future. In this vein, concerns about cost of college and student debt and future employment emerged with regularity. Now these concerns regarding one’s future and the sense that ‘right now in my life my time should be dedicated to securing it’ could be written off as general anxieties young people face because of the period of uncertainty that follows the graduation of college; however, if we consider them in the context of the socio-material conditions that exist for young people today, they too become legitimated beyond youthful anxieties. (ground these in the socio-material realities of their lives – conditions that develop out of the restructuring discussed previously.
- We know that the cost of higher education is rising, both private and public
- Also characterizes the public university my respondents attend.
- And these trends are being accompanied by a reliance on student loans to compensate for these increases. Increase in number of households who hold student-related debt and the average amount households incur
- In addition to rising education costs, we are also seeing transitions in the job market away from worker security, in particular for young graduates. So we’re seeing not only high unemployment, but also a rise in underemployment, especially among recent graduates, as well as cuts to workers benefits such as coverage of health insurance.
- Taken together, future anxieties and the emphasis on time seem representative of broader negotiations of where efforts need to be best spent and seems to suggest that one’s hierarchy of priorities privileges individual efforts to secure one’s future such as working hard in school rather than political participation – at least at this time in their lives. In thinking about the significance of how these young people are resolving the insecurity and future anxiety they are confronting, I have been thinking a lot about the rise of austerity policy that has been an important outcome of the restructuring – and the extent to which these responses reveal an embodiment of the transference and acceptance of responsibility as the state retreats. I think there is also interesting interplay with the values embedded in the American Dream, which has been laced into the history of the US, about working hard and personal responsibility that solidify this embodiment, which might give us insight into why we’re not seeing the same large-scale austerity protest other countries are experiencing. Lastly, while to me this argument seems extremely logical and ‘duhh’, scholars on youth political participation and policy makers have come up short in relating these two literatures and levying them towards social change. Instead, we continue to emphasize formal political participation, civic education and service learning. In doing so we participate in the reproduction of this system, and normalize the idiocracy of supporting a system that doesn’t support us by passing these values onto young people.